Hundreds of Strawberry Crest students pushing to bring back Donohoe

Posted Jan 5, 2012 by Bill Ward

Updated Jan 5, 2012 at 10:24 PM

A day after Gerold Dickens resigned as Strawberry Crest’s head football coach, several students at the school put together a petition to bring back former Chargers coach Todd Donohoe.

The petition was started Thursday by Strawberry Crest junior Adam Franklin, a former offensive lineman at the school. With the help of his fellow students, which included current Chargers players, Franklin said he gathered about 300 signatures Thursday. He said he hopes to pen at least 500 in total before taking the petition to the school’s athletic director, Melvin Williams.

“I think we as a student body can have some influence about who the next coach is for sure,” Franklin said. “Coach Donohoe is a great coach. He taught us not just howw to be football players, but also about being good young men, in the classroom and in the public.”

Donohoe was the Chargers’ head coach for the 2009 and 2010 seasons, where his squads went 2-7 and 5-5, respectively. Last season under Dickens, The Crest went 1-9 but were playing in one of the toughest districts in the state, one that contained Class 6A state champion Armwood, 2010 state champion Jefferson and perennial county power Hillsborough.

Prior to his stint as head coach at Strawberry Crest, had been an assistant at Armwood for five seasons and was head coach at his alma mater Dunedin, where he served as head football coach from 1996-98.